We Are Atlantis
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU, no spoilers, set in 2016. An oil/alternate fuel source war between England and the Middle East could lead to WW3. Sherlock is on a case to solve the murder at the heart of it, when events lead to Mycroft evacuating John, Mary, Molly and Mrs. Hudson to Transylvania. On top of everything else, John has "post traumatic amnesia". For the Lady of the Fandoms.
1. Chapter 1 A Soldier's Strength

**~We Are Atlantis~**

**To the Lady of the Fandoms~**

**Chapter One: A Soldier's Strength.**

_He's shivering,demanding an explanation, as Mary daubs his forehead with creek water, and Molly scouts the woods around them._

_"I heard something..."she mutters, nervously._

_"Sherlock,..." John mutters in his daze, "What...in ...blazes?"_

His dream is now more real than his waking. Except for the nagging feeling, that anxious nails- on- a- chalkboard feeling, of not being able to remember what happened. Mary is calling it post- traumatic amnesia. He doesn't need that right now. He needs to know what the heck is going on.

Because he's hit his head, and the world is reeling. Also, he's being forced into the back of an armored car/ makeshift ambulance that Mycroft has provided,and that Mycroft is driving. Mary and Molly are huddled inside, tending to Mrs. Hudson's leg she has fallen and hurt. Sherlock is holding John, like one would a toddler they're trying to keep from falling off the kitchen counter, hands firmly wrapped around his ribs. He's shouting at his brother,when John notices how roughed-up his face is. Wonders why? No, the two of them weren't fighting, even in blind fury John could never hurt Sherlock like that. There's a gash across one of his sharp cheekbones, weeping scarlet down his chin, that is particularly distracting John at the moment. He almost doesn't hear what Sherlock is saying:

"Van Helsing is go!" he shouts to Mycroft. What? What does that mean?

And Mycroft starts up the truck.

"Sherlock?!"John whispers hoarsely,suddenly desperate.

Sherlock is practically begging him, a hand sliding to his face, "Listen to me,John. You're a soldier and a doctor, and probably the only person on earth that can help these women now. You have to be strong for them, you have to trust me. Have faith,John?...Will you do that, for me,please? Please,have faith..."

Sherlock is a good actor, but John knows him too well. His tears are real, there is no doubt in John's mind. The way he fights them,chokes them down so he can talk (almost ) steadily. They are very real. Far too real...

Why can't John remember what is happening in this dream? Of course, he knows that it really happened, he just can't remember why?

He starts to panic,"No."Sherlock commands, grasps his chin firmly in the hand on his face." You're a soldier. Be strong." he smiles,a tiny smile, and mutters, "I-I love you." which is something Sherlock wouldn't say, might think, but wouldn't actually verbalize unless this were a _very _serious situation.

He lets his hand slide gently off his face, takes him by the ribs again, and pushes him further up into the truck. Lets his hand slide away.

"Sherlock?!"John croaks as loudly as his voice can without breaking,and clutches at his hand, and he gives him a light grasp,as he pulls away,

"No, John! Just trust me...Trust me..."Sherlock gasps ,as he slowly backs away from the truck. John tries to leap down to him, but whatever injury made him so weak Sherlock was having to hold him like that in the first place,makes it impossible. That's when John notices something odd. Sherlock is barefoot. Then he tries desperately to use some of his friend's own methods, to figure out why. He observes his hair is singed, and his toes are blistered. His white shirt has grey dust, and the knees of his black pants are greyed with fire damage. He ran through a fire, his shoes burned where he had to remove them...

He also notices that he's holding his pistol,and that the hand that holds it is bloodied. So , maybe his fingers were grazed in a shooting?

Not knowing is driving John crazy. He reaches a hand to Sherlock, as Mycroft begins to drive away. Sherlock reaches a hand back,and suddenly five guys begin climbing out of the woodwork of this old pier they were on. Looks like somewhere in Liverpool.

Why would they have been in Liverpool?

Why was Sherlock opting to stay behind?!

Where were they now?

_"Never in all my life would I have wanted to come to Transylvania." Mrs. Hudson is muttering, crossly._

_So, that's where they are._

_John whimpers in his sleep," Oh, baby, I'm sure it hurts. I've pulled the shrapnel out, you're ok..."Mary is saying._

_Shrapnel?_

_"Have you heard from him, is he coming back?"Molly is asking Mycroft._

_"I don't know, he could be dead for all I know."_

_"Please, don't say things like that!"_

_Mycroft groans, "I'm sorry, Molly."_

_And then she gasps, "What was that?"_

_Gun shots..._

_"You're a solider, Be strong..."Sherlock had told him._

John sits up, and takes Mary's hand, gently pulling it away from his face.

"Ok, I don't know what's going on, but it's time we take action, all of you with me. You have weapons? Somebody, hand me something!"

Molly produced John with a knife, "Sherlock had the only gun." she says ,anxiously.

John desperately wants to know where he took it off to, but now's not the time to ask,

"Then we'll have to make do..."

The forest explodes with shots.

"Alright, ladies and err, gentleman. Single file, serpentine, run!"


	2. Chapter 2 The Countess

**Chapter 2- The Countess~**

**Author's Note: To fans of Irene Adler, I am sorry, but yes she is the main antagonist of this story.**

Somehow, John got them out of that end of the woods, unscathed, and lead them into the backyard of one of the Romanian historical mansions.

He stopped,panting. His head hurt more than ever the wound to his leg had, which was actually very scary for him, because his leg had hurt more than a soldier would ever admit was out of breath, and dizzy with confusion, and feeling icey razors of anxiety swirling in his stomach, like someone swills mouthwash,wondering what in blazes had happened to Sherlock.

"Ok somebody , please, tell me..." he panted..."Why, why are people trying to kill us?Why the bloody devil are we in these woods, (and it doesn't look like England)? Where is Sherlock, why did he take off with the only bloody pistol, and what?! is going on?"

Mary swallowed, "Darling,...we can't...tell you what happened..."

"Why not?"

Molly swallowed, "Because Mycroft and Sherlock didn't tell us what happened, and Mycroft is being bullishly adamant not to breathe a word."

John wheeled on Mycroft, who threw his hands in the air,"Ok, this is the short of it. If I tell you too much, the bad guys are going to kill Sherlock. And it won't be very pretty how..."

"How?!"John interrupted, suddenly angry because he was so nervous.

Mycroft buried his face in his hands, "Sherlock stayed behind in Liverpool, and was going a diffrent way to lead them off of our "scent" because they've tagged him with some computer chip or something. I'm not sure how they did it, we discovered it only when we got to Liverpool, but the use of it is so they can keep track of his whereabouts. He's making it look like we're walking right into their trap. By now, they've probably abducted him, are torturing him, and by now they could have tagged me too, and are recording everything I'm saying, and if I say too much, or if he won't say anything-which knowing him he won't- then they will kill him. Probably by detonating the chip they've put in him, it was strange, a prototype of some new device ,I think, they shot it in between his ribs,though I don't know how they did it, I do know that all they'd have to do is press a button, and it will burn the heart right out of him..."

A wave of sickness crashed over John more like a sounded sadistic, brutal, bazaar, like some kind of torture from a sci-fi flick.

"A-aand, where are we,and why are we here?"

Mycroft lowered his head, "We are in historic Transylvania. I have a confrontation to make with a countess. She...is at the heart of all this upset. The key to my brother and I's betrayal..."

"A she?What's her name?"

"Irene Adler, also known as the Woman, and here known as the Countess Hermanstadt."

John's jaw dropped.

"Irene Adler ..is dead?"

"My brother isn't the only one who can come back from apparent death, you know? The report about her being in America, was actuallly true, John. Sherlock helped her escape. She went to America, and then met up with part of Moriarty's network that hails from the Russian block. Don't really know how that she inherited the mansion here in the historic district, but the rumor is she sold the network a soul to get it. And that soul would be a one Sherlock Holmes...

He rescued her, and she betrayed him. I suppose now you understand why Sherlock has never allowed himself to fall in (that sort of) love..."

John felt like somebody had stabbed him. Sherlock had obviously had a sort've admiration ,if it could be called nothing more than that, for Irene , or he wouldn't have bothered to help her after all the trouble she caused...

He had no idea the full extent of the Woman's wickedness now, and it was very good that he did not, for the anger he'd have known, anger for the pain she intended to cause Sherlock, would probably have made his heart explode.

"Alright, so , we're off to see the Woman!" John gasped. "But why did Mary, Molly, and Mrs. Hudson get drug along?"

Mycroft swallowed, "Sherlock and I thought the closer you all were to danger, the farther you would be from harm. The Woman is actually infinitely more sadistic than I'd ever dared imagine...and she, well she'd have a hit put on you all if we left you at home, being you're all the only friends we really have. We had to make do with my people for Greg, it's not like we could carry him away from New Scotland Yard, Detective Inspector and all. But we thought..." he smirked sheepishly, "You'd be safer with us. See, her people won't straight up kill you if you're too close to us. They want the Holmes boys to hurt...And believe you me, we will...We will..."


	3. Chapter 3 Solving Your Own Murder

**Chapter 3: Solving Your Own Murder~**

_"Sherlock, foolish, naive,virgin Sherlock. So pure and innocent...I was always just playing the game, yes? I couldn't break you. Couldn't stain your snow-white angelic being. Oh, poor fool. You are a pure and spotless lamb for my sacrifice. My ram without blemish. I will become "The Lady of Kingdoms".And you, will die for me...Won't you? Because that's what you're good at , aren't you? Taking the Fall ,is what you're good at._

_You never really were anything of substance. A trick, just a magic trick...Let's put on one more show, funny little magician..._

_This will be your masterpiece, really, you can thank me! How I set up the greatest game you ever played, huh?_

_I will let you solve your own murder,and then maybe you can save the day, Sherlock...You can be the hero..Oh,but wait, those don't exist , do they?And now, tehehhe, neither do you."._

He hears her voice, as her contacts are drowing him, and pulling him up for air. He makes some rapid deductions.

She isn't really here, her voice is being Skyped to him. His captors are Jihadists. The walls of his torment chamber are made of some kind of strange alloy.

There's a man in a suit standing against the far right wall. Three pens in the pocket protector, one of them has the logo of OPEC, but scratched out as if he had broken ties with them.

This is the man that he was looking for. The man that arranged( though perhaps wasn't the one who preformed) the murder of the one well -noted Sheik who currently owned all accsess to the oil wells of Saudi Arabia.

This was the case Sherlock had been working on right before she interferred, out of the blue, betrayed him, black mailed him, sent her people in to eliminate him...

The oil tycoon had been murdered by a "British" gunman just last week. Which was almost guaranteeing the start of World War 3, because the enitre Middle East was now exploding with fury at this random terrorist attack. Unless Sherlock could solve the case, and declare the British government not guilty of the blame, war was iminent.

World War 3 would errupt, and it would be over oil this time. Before the gunman killed himself, he revealed that the Saudi reserves were bone dry. Before the eyes of the merciless broadcast, he revealed that they had been selling diluted, almost worthless oil, that was actually responsible for a breakdown in transportation in Russia. Which had caused a Russian panic, that lead to the assasination of an American scientist working feverishly on the prototype for what he called an "electro psycho-magnetic" fuel source, a source that ran off of electric impulse and the power of brain stimuli to manipulate magnetic fields of energy, literally allowing people to self-propel their vehicles, via a wireless headset "steering apparatus". Sherlock wasn't sure exactly how this worked, but America had errupted in a panic that this top- secret endeavour was suddenly compromised, and was dangerously close to civil war, with people's out- cry that this study , needing several people's minds as host to test it on, was extremely unethical and repressive of the government, and alienated their rights.

Sherlock solved his own murder pretty quickly then.

Of course, the Russians hated him. And now they had the study in their grasp. And they knew of one mind that would not be so easily broken by the experiment. One mind that would lead to the break through. One mind that would not only lead to the breakthrough,but cause this fuel source to become severely weaponizable, with it's amazing naturally self-propelling ,deductive skills.

His mind...

To get it where they could use it, they would literally need to drive him into a stimulation overload of sorts. By definition, drive him insane.

Which could only be done by someone who knew all the right buttons to push.

Which would be Irene Adler, (who,by the way, actually was the one who helped arrange the scientists assasination, pretending to be head-over-heels in love with him, to gain his trust, and then betrayed him to the Russian hit man).

And she knew the buttons by name, John, Mary,Molly, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, Greg.

Meaning that now he was fighting for their lives,as well as for world peace.

No pressure...


	4. Chapter 4 Amnesia's Unrest

**Chapter 4: Amnesia's Unrest~**

_"Sherlock, there's no way I'm leaving you now."_

_"The building is going to blow, John."_

_"Yeah, what else is new?"_

John wants so desperately to remember. His amnesiac glimpses come in little mini-series of dreams all throughout that first night that he conciously spent with the others ,in the woods, on the way to Adler's mansion. At the end of each "episode" he wakes up in a cold sweat. His heart is racing, like the feet of a dieing zebra, before the lions unleashed from hell. Desperate...

Why can't he remember? What if there is some vital piece of information tucked away in the vault(oh there you go, John, under his influence again...) that is the only hope for Sherlock's survival?

He is in utter agony over his friend's well-being tonight. Never mind the looming threat of another great war. Wars happen and John felt there was nothing the average guy like himself could do about it.

Sherlock. That is the only person in the world John is concerned with right now. He doesn't have to worry about the others, they are lying about him(Mary closest to him) fast asleep. Where he can protect them. John knows they'll be safe, because he'll go kicking down the throat of the last hound of hell ,before he will let any Russian, British, American, Jihadist, or any other kind of possibly terrorist maniac, lay a finger on them. But Sherlock. Not here. Not with him. And hence, not safe...

"Why?" he curses at him, "For being so clever, you're really SUCH an idiot! The only place you are ever going to be safe is with me,..."

He's angry with him. Angry for sending him away, taking this on alone. Angry even though he agrees; the others need him. Mycroft may be clever, may have people, but John's a soldier, groomed to survive...

Angry, and fearful, and grateful. Because, he risked his life to save them all-again. Thankful,but angry that he's always the one taking "the fall". Wants to reach through the darkness of this night, and chin him for being so stupid as to risk himself like this. Wants to reach into the night, and somehow pull him out of the darkness, like a vacuum, wrap him in his arms, and hold him there, drowned him in his veins, keep him safely under his blood, out of harm's way.

Finds himself longing for him. For his closeness. The knife-wide silhoutte of his body lying somewhere near him in this dark.

Remembers many other times, on a case, when it seemed like things were turning for the worse. His shape. Thin, almost like a blade, cutting through back alleys, spreading shadows like butter over the pavement, making whoever was hiding in shadows to rise to the surface like foam on beer, moving as fast as the surge through the circuit in the night. Alive like electricity, mind alive. John could almost hear his pulse in his own ears then. It had been exhilirating, to actualize the reality of his life beside him, as if he were the only other life on earth, stirring in the dark womb of London's underbelly,in those distant nights of dangers past. There were times when they'd stumble close enough, their fingers would brush together. John remembered how Sherlock's fingers almost prickled with the alertness of his nerves. He literally was on fire then.

Sometimes Sherlock would lean close to talk to him in that darkness, voice barely audible, trembling and heavy under the weight of that surge of awake nerves. John could feel his breath on his face. Breath, the clearest sign of vitality. And somehow it had thrilled John. He wondered if maybe twins feel the same way, if ever they open their eyes inside of their mother, and feel each others presence in that Dark Before Birth. John could feel his life, could even still smell ,strange as it sounds, the natural scent of his hair, (which all people with dark hair have), and the faint scent of his aftershave, and the woolite smell of his recently washed coat, being somewhat dampened by his perspiration.

It was only memory now, and one very clear memory, with the absence of all the others that give this one definition, is a thing of great frustration to an amnesiac.

He growled to keep from crying, and his head hurt, as he sat up, sleep evading him now, to keep watch, hoping against all hope, maybe he'd found a way to get rid of the tracking tag, and he'd sneak back to them in the dark. But he never appeared, no matter how deeply John longed for the closeness of his presence that pulled at the strings of his mind.

The desperation of John's wish, somehow gave him back a piece to the puzzle that was his recent memory.

_"You saw it, the case. John, the logo on that case will tell us the name of the group the Sheik's shooter really was with. It will help us prove Britain's innocence in the whole affair. I need you to calm yourself..." Again Sherlock's soft breath against his brow, thrilling him into following the master magician's instructions._

_"Put all else you saw out of mind...Put me out of mind, for just a moment, please, I'm here with you, I'm alright. Now, focus...tell me what the case said."_

_"Atlantis..."John's own voice,speaking out of memory's grey static. "It said,'We Are Atlantis'"._

_Sherlock's jaw had clutched John's face in both hands, features taught with an expression that said,_

_"I will protect you from this new terrible evil."_

_"Ok, good...You've been indespinsable..."Sherlock had huffed, and pulled him into his embrace."Calm yourself!It's over ,for now..."_

John suddenly remembered that Sherlock had already solved the case of the Sheik's murder, and just needed to get the word out, when Irene had sabatoged it all.

This made him realize that she had given him an ultimatum. Play her game, or she had his friends eliminated.

John gasped tears back, realizing Sherlock had gone like sheep to slaughter for them.

And then he woke Mycroft up, to tell him what little he had remembered.


	5. Chapter 5 The War Machine

**Chapter 5: The War Machine**

Again Irene's face appears on Skype. Red-rouge smile, seeming to drip with Sherlock's blood, any fondness,if not love,that she may have had, turned now to a very potent breed of hate.

Sherlock was now fully concious, no longer drowning. Hands and feet were chained with heavy truck pulling chains, and one of his captors had taken a fistful of his thick ,raven hair, and pulled his head upwards where he would have to look the Woman in the eye.

Whatever fondness,if not love, he may have felt towards her had officially turned into sickening disdain. He felt bile rising in his throat that burned with all his torments,that had been incessant, since he had turned himself in to her people in Liverpool about a week and a half ago. It may have seemed longer ago than that, but under torment a single hour becomes an eternity. And the pain begins to blur into a sort of half-felt sensation, as if maybe it were only imagined, yet still so very real to the one suffering it, and the only wish is to escape the dream that proves their insanity, and makes them hate themself almost as much as they loved the person for whom they sacrificed their skin. If anything in all the Cosmos could equal such a love.

And Sherlock had been tortured, very brutally, as they prepared him to be weak enough to tell them whatever they wanted to know. Thinking his mind was something to be manipulated. But in reality...

Sherlock's mind was already very volatile. A very powerful mind, under pressure, becoming a very fragile mind, like the layers of the earth's crust before the mountain bleeds its fire. They didn't know, not yet, what sort of fire they were playing with.

"Have you any idea what we are going to DO to you, Sherlock, darling?" Irene was saying. "How wonderful it will be, really? A scientific breakthrough ! The beginning of prototypes for vehicles that can not only defy the laws of physics, but perhaps rewrite them."

"Established law is something you have never been able to simply leave alone, have you ,Irene?"

"Oh ,there you go being the "Administrator of Justice", again. Saint Sherlock. The Virgin Mary!" she spat. "No. Laws are made to be broken. You're a detective ,darling, you ought to have learned the rules to this game by now. Or, let me correct myself. You _were_ a detective. Now you're a guinea pig."

Sherlock swallowed his bile, and for the first time in his life, he was actually so angry, his blood pressure rose to the point it broke a little vein open, and his nose started bleeding down his chin. She laughed. "Oh look, I think he's a little cross. I'm sorry ,Junior." she laughed.

"But, maybe I can make it better. I will give you atleast an explanation of what we are going to do to you. As I said, we are beginning the _prototypes_ of the vehicles of the future. These machines won't be up and running till maybe 30 years from now, a long time to drag on a war, eh? And keep your brain in a jar, too, darling,here, let's show him how it will work, gentlemen!:"

She then had men in the room she was in away wherever the Skype camera was set up, set up a chart of the brain and showed how the device would work.

"Ok, so basically this is how all the scientific people explained it to me. Everybody's brain has alot of electro-magnetic energy, you can actually move a magnet a bit with your brain ,for example. Well, these boys, they want to take an extremely powerful brain, like your own, and learn how to harness this magnet moving ability to a new level, letting ones brain be like the starting switch of a vehicle. You simply strap on a funny little "Star Trek" style head band, and it's desgined to allow your brain stimuli to move some magnets in the device you're strapped into, to start an electronic circuit, that sends electricity down a wire to a sort of alternator, that starts the power in an electirc automobile of sorts. Really, in my opinion, it seems like a pretty bazaar idea. I'm just in it, well...for you." She smiles sickeningly. "I really want to give you a brilliant last show, dear. Y'know, the last man they tried this on, a BRILLIANT French chemist, mmm..." she smiled wickedly through barred teeth,leaned close to the camera," Well, they studied him.,Meaning they tortured him scientifically, and all that before he succumbed , they made an amazing discovery. Some kind of electro- producing fuel source in his blood, uh? Life in the blood. Future in the blood. And the secret to clean energy in our planet lies _literally_ in the man himself. The influence of the brain over the blood, and why the brain needs blood and oxygen, and so much more complicated stuff than I can really say without giving away the suprise to you. Let me just say, that the key to unlocking Kingdom Come, and the Future lies somewhere between your head and your heart. And hopefully you can solve your way out of this, Sherlock, because if you don't there's going to be a war, and you'll be it's finest machine...God help you..."

Sherlock felt his teeth grinding, knowing this was a game in which he held none of the cards.

"So be very careful how much of said blood you waste, boys. Oh, and remember not to touch Jonny till the time is right. We want his heart intact for our little experiment, eh?" she snickered.

Sherlock's captors began to haul him away, as he started screaming unintelligble threats at the camera, warning her what sort of mayhem he'd bring down on her head if she even thought about doing anything to one John Haymich Watson...


	6. Chapter 6 The Flight of Van Helsing

**Chapter 6~The Flight of Van Helsing~**

When John tells Mycroft the missing piece to their puzzle,the man who is at the heart of British government rolls up in a ball, and vomits in the forest.

In unison John, Mary, Molly, and Mrs. Hudson's hearts stop. For the same reason that their hearts are kept beating, by the virtue of the one in jeopardy right now...

"Mycroft?" John entreats ,softly, horror sticking in his bones like icey razors.

Mycroft sits up, and wipes the residue of his vomit off his lips with his sleeve, and then wipes his sleeve on the grass. Looks ,almost pitifully, up at the forest's roof.

"This is far worse than I feared..."

"Mycroft... what's...what's wrong?Why?" John swallows, clenches his fists. "What does "We Are Atlantis" mean?"

Mycroft swallowed, and turned. "They are a group of scientists who also actively practice the dark arts. They believe that Westren civilization has been allowed to continue for too long, and that science will never be able to blossom to its full potential until government is eliminated. So ,then, as anarchists of a more devious nature,they would have the world governments turn on themselves, become too big for themselves, implode under the waves of cataclysm, and divine ire. Just like in the legend of Atlantis. So, by definiton, we, you and I, are Atlantis. Ripe for their punishment. And they think of themselves as the "gods" ready to doll it out...Making Sherlock..."Mycroft gasped...

"He knew...All along, when he and I were planning Operation Van Helsing, he had to have known..."

"Known what?!" John gasped, horror turning to fury, desperate to rescue...his thoughts, and the breath of life within his mind, couldn't even bare to whisper the name of the one implied.

"That Irene Adler, that the British gunman they blamed the Sheik's assasination on, that they both were working for The Atlantis Movement...When he helped me plan Operation Van Helsing, which was the operation to evacuate you lovelies right into the line of fire, and weed out agents of Adler's web, like Van Helsing did his Vampires,...he must have already known...known how this was going to play out. Must have known, that the scientific breakthrough the Atlantis Movement has been desperately grasping for for years, would start and end with him. Which means, he is playing their game, allowing himself to be their "guinea pig" making it look as if he surrendered to them, to buy us time to take the news back to the UN and have England acquited of all counts of allowing random terrorism, and at the same time, he means to sacrifice himself to end their movement, and end this last greatest war, before it starts..."

There was a thoughtful silence, as the word _sacrifice_ bounced like machine gun fire off the alabaster hallways of John's skull.

Mycroft went on talking, "He's playing the game for the game's own sake, he's dancing the devil in circles again...Sherlock Holmes...the greatest detective of all time...my little brother..." he swallowed..." Is about to give his last performance..."

**LAST**_._ The word went like an arrow to John's throat, and he felt his blood glazing over with ice, freezing as hard as stone .

"Oi, you're just as much of a drama queen as he is. Last? Certainly not, Mycroft?!..."John's fury at whoever was causing the danger of (no, oh God help him, the oxygen was loosing its power in his brain, and his thoughts could not breathe the shape of the beloved name)...

"What... what will they do?..to him?"

Him. The word was heavy as stone. John felt as though his bones had just labored ,and chiseled, and mined forth a great portion of their own vital ore;that his life was chiseled and scraped away with the very dull shaping tool his tounge had become, the influence of his own speech turning inward, afflicting his blood with the agony of the love that could produce such a dread-filled inquiry. No. He could not utter even a pronoun to replace the beloved name without a fatal blow to all vitality, and sense thereof within him. The question,( and nevermind the answer), itself had rid his tendons of their tenacity. With no will to stand anymore, the others watched, as their Captain sank to his knees.

Mycroft turned, blinking against the daylight, face as white and confused as the moon would be, if she were to step outside in the noontide hour.

"The worst, the very worst part is..."Mycroft swallowed..." I don't know...All I know is that..It will hurt. And death would be easier...But it will not come. And my little brother will beg me to kill him before the end."

Stop. Sun, moon, whirling wheels of the earth. Bird songs, wings scraping against leaves, like boats against the buoys, sailing through emerald seas, just stop. Wind whispering through the air, stirring ,spreading the daily news, stop. It couldn't be happening. John was not processing...

Stop it now! You fool...No, John cannot address him. There is no strength left in his body. The very thought of the name itself will cause his bones to cave in, as if they have been gutted of marrow, like fish are cleaned.

He...oh it hurts to refer to him at all, _he _is not supposed to be the one to die for it...John always wished, willed, hoped,that if it came to this, that he himself would be the one to taste the bullet, to take the fall. But everytime, _he_ had made up his mind to do it himself.

John saw, in a single flash before his mind, _him_ falling in slow-motion from the roof of Saint Bartholomew's. Falling one moment, then running through a fire the next. Falling, and then opting to stay behind there on the pier in Liverpool. Falling, and then crawling through a sea of electric sparks, commanding him to leave because the building was about to blow. Glimpses, amnesiac glimpses of the last so many days. But one thing he can't seem to forget...

_Landing._It was bound to happen at some point. He couldn't free-fall forever. Landing. Trick or no trick, grand peformance or chilling reality- didn't matter. The show always ended this way. Scarlet on the sidewalk, like the seal on the back of the letter. A vow, made in deep red. Aching scarlet letters, scrawling over stone. The message all too clear. The last thing he had said,

"_I love you..._

_Be strong..."_

.

John made up his mind.

His nerves were suddenly on fire. Breathing it,or feeling like he did, he hauled himself to his feet.

"And he wont get what he wants either...You wanna know why? Because we are going to pay lil mizz Adler a visit...a not too friendly visit. Forget about a bloody war...we're going to get this fool back in one piece!" and then without waiting for the others to follow, expecting them to, John set out again for Adler's mansion inherit. Suddenly he was the Van Helsing of the operation, going to slay a vampire...


	7. Chapter 7 The Phoenix Has Landed

**Chapter 7~ The Phoenix Has Landed~**

He hears his voice through the forest. Feels his light glancing off all the trees. Like standing before the march of Aurora Borealis, when one is deep in the wintry night, of the lonely North.

Sherlock is so alone. Out of his head. Realizes he's bleeding, can feel the warm effusion of his life in his up-turned palm.

"_Now what would I be bleeding for?"_ he asks himself...

"_Stupid..__**who**__ would you be bleeding for?" _ his breathless mind answers.

"_Well, there are atleast a handful of people I would bleed for..."_

The light is drawing closer. He hears his voice, it slices throught he dark and ancient forest like the arrows of God, searching for his heart.

"_But only one person that I would lay here like this...and die like the sun does every twilight..." _

He can't remember how he came to be dieing ,cleary. He remembers Irene's betrayal. Remembers being tormented by her scientists. Remembers that he had a sudden , suprisingly violent reaction to their study, to their torment. Remembers hearing what they planned to do to John, and going far more insane than they had intended, and he remembers his act-of-God escape. Then...this is where it gets far more hazy. Somehow he found a way to follow his friends to historic Transylvania...

And...he had to keep them safe of course...Safe, his only personal desire was the safety of those he loved, from out of the midst of the Work.

Safe...

So, how had he kept them safe?

The tracking device...It had been some new design of one...It had been embedded in his skin, supposed to create pain of a supernatural order if he tried to remove it...

Remove it...

Of course...

He lay in his blood, laughing like a mad man in a scarlet rain. Of course...

"_Noah, do you see me lying here? You may wanna ask God to push your old boat off the top of Mount Ararat. Because another flood's coming...Crimson tide, like that American sports team, which State I can't remember right now...Only knew about it because of a client...having a run in with..."_

His thoughts trail off, as blood trails through his fingers, as if his soul is an hourglass, slipping away with the ease of smoking candles...

He hears Mycroft saying something to him one Hanukkah, when they were children..." The candles burned eight days straight, Sherlock, without oil...A miracle...

You know miracles are just fancy science only God can use but doesn't bother to explain. Like you. Only miracles can keep your crazy-fool-wild-ape-child-behind alive. And He hasn't even attempted to explain _you_ yet. You should've come with directions, for when you get broken..."

Sherlock laughs, and starts hiccuping up blood. Not if,but when...He is now...oh he is now. If his blood is a fuel source ,really, that God didn't disclose to the general populace yet, (and probably for this very reason, reason being it should not be exploited such as it was now), it was certainly being extravagantly waisted. And it would take a very miraculous case of reverse osmosis for him to "un-bleed" all he had spilt.

"_But for __**you**__ this isn't a waste at all.."_he thinks, as John comes crashing like a meteor, through the trees.

"Sherlock!" he gasps, hoarsely. One minute, he's on his way to storming Adler's castle, and then right here in the old path leading up to the creepy, ancient mansion door, here he is lying, and God-knows-what has been done to him. He has on a funny-looking headband that has a green light running through it, that flickers like it's picking up wifi signals, which it may very well be. He has what looks like an oxygen tube tunning out of his nose, and up into a chord in the back of the head-dress he is wearing. His side is mangled, and for the sake of the reader's well-being, I cannot disclose how terribly mangled the wound where the tracking device was removed is. Suffice to say, it would have been far less traumatic for Sherlock, mentally, to have died.

John kneels beside him, sputtering his name. Sherlock keeps his eyes tightly closed, more afraid of seeing the look on John's face ,witnessing this horrible mutilation of him(and done in John's behalf, making it all the more hard for his dearest friend to process) ,than he is actually afraid of seeing the mutilated remains of what was,but doesn't anymore feel like, his body. He feels now like the Phoenix when it lands, in and Ashen Sunset, waiting for the day of awakening.

Ashes of a man who used to be somewhat magnificent. Maybe. Sherlock can't remember anything remarkable about the bleeding , and tattered man he feels he is watching from somewhere else, lying in the Afghan veteran doctor's arms.

"Sh-sherlock..."John gasps, and is actually on the verge of breaking out into inconsolable sobs, if he weren't trying so valiantly to keep a stiff upper-lip for Molly who has covered her mouth, and fallen on her knees. Mycroft shouts...and stumbles away, leaning against a tree, panting. Mary runs up, takes a look, gives a horrified, moaning gasp, turns and ushers Mrs. Hudson to the side, "Oh Mrs. Hudson, dear, I don't think you need to see this. We've found..Sherlock, yeah. And, well, he doesn't look very good.."

"Is he alive?...Is he alive, Mycroft, dear, is Sherlock?!"...The dear old lady is absolutely distraught.

Mycroft swallows, and tries to force himself to turn and look at little brother.

Who decides, he had better face his fear, and open his eyes, or his friends will be complete basket-cases, and that's no good for trying to stop the collapse of World Civilization.

He opens his eyes, and smiles, a toothy child-like and somewhat embarassed grin, through all his blood, as if he were a naughty toddler that had had an accident that scaired him, and made him look silly all at once.

"Sher-Yes, yes he's alive!" John replies, in a gasp, that the old woman doesn't hear, and then shouts for joy,"HE'S ALIVE!"

And Mycroft sags to his knees, still leaning against the tree, weeping and muttering something that sounded like,"Hallelujah,mmthereisaGodforrealthen..."

"Hey..."Sherlock mutters, and John runs feverish hands through the raven waves of hair, cascading like inky streams over an eye, pinned down by the wierd head-band...

"Hey!" he practically giggles, hysterical at the sight of him mutitlated,and ecstatic at getting him back alive, for the moment anyway. He'd have to work probably for a harrowing long time to get him where he was fully aware of all that was going on.

Molly clambers to their side, and takes his hand, biting back tears, and giggling feverishly. He looks up at her, and smiles. She breaks into tears and laughs, "Hey, Sherlock!"

He tries to sit up," Nnnn-noooo-o...shhh, be still,"John practically coos, like the father of a very sick child. Molly gives his hand a reassuring squeeze, smiling brokenly, and nodding wildly, "Careful, you're hurt, very bad..."

He blinks...,and swallows..." I got the tracker out. You're..all...sss-ssss-safe...she can't..." he coughs up the blood on his mouth, and John is suddenly pealing out of his coat, and shirt. Mary is right then at John's side, eager to help, and Mrs. Hudson is trying to console Mycroft, who's stomach is still a little nervous from hearing the news earlier, and well, now this...

"Mmm, darling, you'll catch a cold like that, here..." she takes off her sweater, and wraps it around his bare shoulders, that are already trembling wildly, and covered in goose-bumps. John acknowledges her sacrifice, with a quick warm-and-also-nervous smile, and then uses the coat to wipe Sherlock's mouth...Then he starts applying the wad of clothes into the wound, crying softly now,as he watches Sherlock's blood soak his clothes, and feels it wet his hands, and knows he's the one he spilled it for in the first place. Sherlock's face crumples in pain, but more so from watching John cry, which unnerves him. He reaches his free hand up, and brushes his tears away, gently. Then John accidently presses a little too hard.

The sound, though quiet, he makes, can't be recreated with descriptive words. The sound of sheer insanity-inducing pain. Molly cries audibly, and he realizes he's probably brusing her hand, by how tight he's holding it. He turns to her, wide eyed, and slackens his grip, trying to rub the soon-to-be soreness out of her fingers with his thumb...

"S-s-sorry...Shhh, d-don't cry..'M okay."

Now John scoffs,because that statement is ridiculously false. Sherlock's blood-loss glassy-ed, and John's tear-stained eyes meet for a moment. Sherlock attempts a shaky smile, and thumbs a tear off John's chin..."W-willl be..M'mean...I g-got it..and now you're safe..."

Mycroft has heard the sound he's made, and crawls to him, desperately,and collapses by his side in the grass. Never mind their differences, no one should ever have to hear their little brother make such a gruesome sound. Lays a hand in his hair. Sherlock turns, studying him with the eyes that observe everything, even when they've been slightly dulled by bloodlessness.

"Caring is...disadvantage, eh?" he mutters.

"Shut up."Mycroft gasps, just glad to hear him speak.

Mary has , in the meantime, dug around in John's medical bag they stole away with them, until she's found some quick-clot. She tears it open with her teeth. "Here you are, Doctor..." she whispers...

"It'll need stitches, thank you, Nurse." John gasps, and cups Sherlock's chin tenderly in a shaking palm, making him look at him.

"Sorry in advance, mate,what all I'm about to have to do to you is going to hurt more than either of us want to think about, but it will save your life."

Then he pulled his belt off, and wrapped it in Sherlock's teeth. Molly didn't care that her hand throbbed, when Sherlock tried to let go to spair her the pain, she only clutched at his hand tighter, and cut him a look , as if to say, "Let me help."

And John was right. No gag could keep the sound of Sherlock's pain totally muffled. He didn't actually scream, which was far worse, the groaning, teeth- gnashing sounds he did make cannot be described, for the sake of the reader's well being. And then he chewed the belt straight in half. Then apologized wildly, and John just shushed him, and said he'd get another one. In the meantime Mary dug for painkillers..praying aloud she might , just might find some, the sounds Sherlock,(who was a dear friend of hers as well, and not just John's) was making, was crawling under her kind-natured skin,making her bones throb. Halfway through getting him stitched up, John very barely had the needle through his skin, when he reacted in an abnormally violent nature to the pain, sat bolt upright, broke the needle into John's hand, drew his knees to his chin, howled,and trying to miss them all he turned, and threw up in the grass. The lights on the head-band were blinking, dizzingly. John plucked the needle from his skin without even blinking, and took him in his arms, gently turning him around. "Another needle, please Nurse? I swear, Sherlock, I'm almost done...Lay down..."

He took the shirt ,now in ribbons from this struggle, and wiped his soiled lips with it, as he groaned apologizes..

"Easy, mate, oh no, it's quite alright. Will find another shirt, or walk shirtless for a bit...It's nothing, seeing as now I've got you back..."

Mary gave a happy-cry,and brought the needle, and a syringe of pain medication.

"Won't help..."Sherlock gulped, as John tried to get him to lay back down. "Don't waste it on me,..this device mmm plugged into,...amplifies brain stimuli, doesn't even work right, is prototype..might be broken..." he held up a hand..."Increases the levels of pain signals in the brain...N-nothing can touch it...nothing can..." he held up a hand, and put another to his mouth, totally mortified, and threw up through his fingers,and down his chest, and staired at his mess, ashamed.

Mary staired at him, absolutely horrifed.

Then she started crying.

"O-oook..."John gasped, afraid she'd become hysterical. He hugged her quickly, kissed her gently, pulling the needle and surgical thread from out of her grasp, "Go see to Mrs. Hudson? Molly can help with the rest?"

She nodded, and gasped. Molly was close to fainting, but she blinked, and made herself hold the needle, while John took some disinfectant wipes and wiped Sherlock's hands and chest and face off...

"I've made such...a fuss...mmm sorry..."

"Hush, it's ok...You did what you had to...now shut up, and lay back down!" John admonished gently, and finished stitching him, being more careful this time.

At last, it was done. Molly and Mycroft embraced in sobbing relief, and then looked at each other confused by what just happened. John enfolded Sherlock in his arms, cradled his head, and laid down in the grass with him,sobbing now that it was over.

Mycroft smiled. "The doctor is allowing himself a brief emotional interlude. That means ,now, all is well. Come, then, Molly, let's go see after the others..and maybe get our own brains refunctioning..."


	8. Chapter 8 Through Dark Windows

**Chapter 8~ Through Dark Windows~**

She's wearing a dark cape, after the lovely and dark fashions of the Russian world, and watching from the mansion's windows, and pretending it doesn't bother her in the least, the inhuman groans coming from the mutilated body lying in her mansion's walkway. She pretends it doesn't bother her, but actually there is a tiny twinge of guilt that she could be so ruthless. And that she actually likes it that way.

It doesn't last.

"The game's afoot, isn't that what you always say, Junior?" she laughs, through crimson lips, and turns back to her mansion.

Phones her scientists, pretends to be in a state of disbelief about all that has happened,

"You were supposed to live-stream me when you started the tests!" she shouts into the phone.

"You get those blood-samples up here, asap! The Vampire Study will be successfull! Not my life's at stake here, you know."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HIS STIMULI WERE TOO STRONG FOR THE APPARATUS?!"

She hung up on the scientists, his hollow explanation still ringing in her ears.

Sherlock's mind was apparently a lot stronger than anyone had originally thought.

When they had put him in the apparatus to begin studying him, apparently it had sped up his brain's default functions. The result of this being hypersensitivity to everything. Colors turned up to a psychotropic level. Deductive abilities and observational skills severely increased, by as much as 300 percent.

Highly- funcitoning sociopath turned extrememly malfunctioning lab-experiment in a matter of hours.

Not to mention that the device he was plugged into was causing him a very great deal of pain. It hadn't been originally designed to do that. The device was a defective prototype. But the pain seemed to only be increasing the over-stimulated brain functions.

Sherlock's extremely powerful mind was now going haywire. There was literally no telling what he would be capable of now. It would have been alright if he had stayed in a lab and let them "monkey around" with his brain. But he had managed to escape, and that, was only by some stroke of Divine Providence, (he had leaped out of a window, and landed in enough water to save him from dieing the death he should have died way back on the rooftop of St. Bart's). And he,(and even Irene hadn't expected him to do this) had managed to ..(she nearly threw up imagining how, and chose quickly not to think too much about it) get the tracking device out his skin...

And now the world's ony consulting detective turned Frankenstein's monster, was on the loose when Westren civilization was on the verge of collapse, and it was her responsibilty to make sure it was all brought down smoothly. Wonderful. How was she going to collapse the world with Sherlock Holmes free-ranging and trying to save the day?

She smiled to herself, as she watched through the dark windows of her inherited mansion...A mansion she had been given, as a reward for her financial, and otherwise support of this scientific endeavour, in Russian favour since she had gotten the study to the Russian scientists. Historic Transylvania had for a long time had an urban culture flare that leaned towards Vampires, and such supernatural things. Irene wanted a good seat for herself, when the free world fell, and the old Soviet Union rebuilt itself, and took over all it used to own, and then some, and when a darker, and less effective government than communism took it's righful place amongst the world empires, then in the new academic circle of that new world, she could make a name for herself. As Countess Hermanstadt of Romania. Who lived in the old manison with the black and green and bloodstained pathways of historic Transylvania. She would be known then as the creator of the "monster" the machine that went terribly wrong, who's responsibilty had been to save the free-loving world, and who had ended up betraying it.

She had decided some time ago that it was her turn to give Sherlock a fall. Perhaps that was every good villain's dream, these days.

There was only one problem, she noted,as she watched through these dark windows...

John Watson...


	9. Chapter 9 Saving Frankenstein

**Chapter 9: Saving Frankenstein~**

"Ok, slow down. I'm having a really hard time understanding what you're trying to say..."John gasped, disturbed.

He had managed to swallow his own tears a while ago, and carry Sherlock to where they had made their most recent camp. Seated him on a log, and had Mary bring him an oarnge from the bag of food stuffs they had brought with them in their hasty escape from Liverpool. Had cut into it with the knife he'd had in the army, and made Sherlock suck on it, the intent being the juice would build his blood sugar up, and he wouldn't pass out from losing so much blood, which might happen anyway.

Sherlock had sucked it dry, somewhat like a Vampire himself, very quickly, and thrown the peel on the ground. Was now dazedly trying to answer John's questions, but also had several of his own.

"Maybe you could start over, go back to the part where they were explaining what this device is for...?" John asked, softly.

Sherlock's hand wandered around in the air,finger waving about as if he meant to answer,to think up the appropriate reply, but then came to rest on John's cheek. The matching hand slid up the side of his neck, and laid itself on the matching cheek. He staired at him then, with intensely bright eyes. Hair was standing up stangely too, around the head- band in tiny sponge curls, as if the electric surge was recoiling his already curly hair. It almost looked like dark foam, and John found it to be bordering on humorous, but not knowing what caused it made it ,rather instead,sickeningly alarming...

"Your head...It got hit...by a thug with a lead pipe, after we found the Atlantis case in Liverpool, and right before we escaped..."Sherlock muttered.

_"So, now somebody tells me ,to be exact "_ John thought with a smile,

"Are you alright?..."

John reached,and took Sherlock's wrists one in each hand. Wanted to pull him in his arms, and shake him till his jaw clicked. "_AM I ALRIGHT?! YOU'RE THE ONE SOAKED IN BLOOD, YOU IDIOT!"_ he thought, but kept silent.

"Yeah...Yeah, I'm great. Not talking 'bout me though. Tell me, what is this thing supposed to do again?"

Sherlock blinked stupidly. "Explained it, already, didn't I?"

"I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say...You aren't always...easy to understand, anyway, but now you're not...well..." he puffed,

"You aren't yourself,Sherlock, and I'm concerned."

Sherlock blinked, and twitched. He'd been doing that a lot. Twitched like he had a surge pass through his spine, and it hurt more than he could voice. John wanted to vomit, wanted to hit him to jar the subtle look of pain off his face, knowing that wouldn't do any good...

_"Please...actually I'm scared...You are scaring the bloody devil out of me...again...Please, tell me how to help you..."_ John thought, swallowing a lump.

"Well,mmm,mechanismmmm ahh..." he gasped, clutched John's face, tilted it up to peer more steadily into his wild eyes,"Meant to hurt you, so instead I...mmm this mechanism, needed a brain, one strong enough to move magnets and what?, start the motions in this electric generator, mentally power electronic cars...and they won't know how till mmm 30 years?.. My mind's supposed to be strong enough for scientific breakthrough, whole case was about fuel sources,right? They were gonna hurt you..."

So far that was the only thing John really understood, was that Sherlock had done this to protect him. He was on the verge of shouting and crying again, angry and grateful, and deeply sorrowfull all at once...He kept his voice low, and smiled warmly at him though, not angry with him, not wanting to alarm him, in the state he currently was. Get him better, and then maybe shake his brain ajar again.

"Ok, I understand that, but why are you wearing the mechanism now?...Wouldn't they have taken it off before it started "glitching" you..." (which is what he'd started calling all the wierd little symptoms Sherlock had been having..)

Sherlock grimaced." My brain is very strong...better than they thought it was...ahhh...things' stuck to my head. Have to sever my brain stem to get it off?"

John choked just about,_"That will kill you..." _he thought.

"Or another way, is to pull it off with a lot of opposite charged magnets,...don't know how...but...it could come off, kinda like a suction cup when you peal it away, may hurt... They had it rigged to stay on really tight, for when they started the blood fuel tests..."

"Blood fuel tests?"

"Oh yeah, apparently something in my blood, substance, newly discovered, controlled by my brain, provided with the right charge from ahh...the hurting thing," he knocked on his forehead like one does the front door. John made a mental note that he referred to the head-band as "the hurting thing", and winced, more so determined now to find out how to get rid of it. "Generates more stable electricity in blood, so could power whole vehicle, while you sat in it, virtual motion-sensor controlling it..Make for safer driving, and ..and for sci-fi style weapons...And really for wishful thinking, door to future, further way to corrupt society, you see before you, what it will do..."and as if for good measure,he twitched particulalry violenlty, and shuddered.

John swallowed..."How'd you...how'd you escape?"

Sherlock licked his lips, started talking with his hands...hoarse..

"Sherlock?"

"Jumped..I jumped out of a 30 story building...Had really deep water at bottom...And the hurting thing...is waterproof..."

John swallowed, the image of Sherlock jumping again, disturbing.

"Ok...uh, *ehem* Let's make a note to NOT do that again, ok?"

"Ok..."

"Yeah...ok,but...uhmmm...How'd you...get the tracker out...?"

Sherlock looked sick. Looked around, saw the others hovering about. Motioned John closer, and muttered into his ear.

John looked at him like he'd have to feel better to be sick.

Swore on the last atom of the world these Bedlums were bent on burning down to save his Frankenstein.

And beckoned him to come closer,and hugged him, tight.

"Yeah...don't jump...from anywhere higher than a single flight of stairs. And then, you need to wait till atleast the third step from the ground..."

"Ok..."

He twitched again, and then weakly wrapped his arms around John in return. John realized they'd been being a bit clingy lately but given the circumstances...

"Not to worry...we'll get it off...Soon..."

It was a vow.

Sherlock leaned back from John suddenly, as if he'd just remembered something.

"What?," John laughed, bewildered.

"Your shoulders are still bare...here..."He pulled off the black blazer he was wearing over his bloodied shirt. Pulled it over John's shoulders. It was too tight at the chest, and too long at the waist, but he wasn't cold anymore, even though he had insisted he was fine when he made Mary put her sweater back on so she wouldn't be cold.

"Sherlock.."

"Nah...Least we have one bit of all of it fixed now." he smiled, so kindly, John couldn't protest.

And that sealed said vow...


	10. Chapter 10 The Countess Makes a Discover

** Chapter 10: The Countess Makes a Discovery~**

As soon as Sherlock could walk, supported by John, they headed up the path to Irene's mansion. Molly was already fuming, wondering who this woman thought she was. She came to the huge door knocker, and tried with all her might to lift it. It wouldn't budge. Again, she tugged at it. It wouldn't budge. Finally furious, she just started machine- gun pelting the huge door with her fists. Sherlock bit his lip, trying very hard not to crack up at this. John dug his fingers into his shoulders, trying to make him stop, so that he wouldn't crack up in turn. Which effort made Mary crack up secretly, and turn away. Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson staired in disbelief, trying to think of a gentle way to get Molly off the door so they could get in. Just then a camera made it's snake-like motion straight for Sherlock's face, and hissed to a stop.

"See you've brought friends this time, Junior?"

"Hello, Irene."

John swallowed, suddenly more angry than he realized he would be. Molly spun on her heel, lips knitted into an appropriate sneer at the sound of the voice.

"You're just in time. I'm gonna start the tests on your blood samples now. Do you remember when we took them, or were you too incapacitated?"

Sherlock laughed, "You know, I don't think I've actually ever been THAT 'out of the loop'."

"Oh, Sherlock, darling!, where are my manners! Come inside, immediately, and bring your friends! "

The camera hissed back to its mount on the wall.

Mycroft quietly went to the door, and budged it open with ease.

A few moments later, they were standing in a large parlor room or sorts. Or what had been a parlor room, but had now been converted into a lab. And Irene stood in a white coat, with a vial of Sherlock's blood on the table, dropping a chemical into it.

"Hello, there! You won't believe it, Sherlock, you really won't believe it..."

"Believe what? That you're using me to help you bring down civilizaton as we know it, and usher in the "Law of Thermodynamics' as you so affectionately put it?"

"What's?..."John asked, exapserated, and ready to come and tackle this woman into a pair of handcuffs, if only they had any.

She laughed, "Meaning , Doctor, a new government in which, if I'm not certain of your loyalty to the realm, I simply change your existance to serve a greater purpose in it. The world needs fuel sources to operate its fast paced society , you know? We currently use fossil-fuels , don't we? Well, we have a very clean, renewable source of energy right here at our disposal! Ladies and gentleman, I give you, a vial full of Sherlock's blood! Very useful for our experiment. Now we know already that the blood has alot of iron and what not in it,which I can use for speeding up this "fossilization" process, my scientists have just found out. We also discovered a strange substance within the blood plasma that holds electric charge, and under right circumstances will regenerate said charge. The stronger the mind, apparently the stronger the charge. So, what I need to do is find a way to decompose this blood to suit my purposes, and charge it where it will be a long- lasting fuel source. I'm so glad you showed up, Sherlock, because I just firgured it out, and want to demonstrate it."

She pointed a remote at his head-band, and with a painful gasp he swayed, and hit his knees. The beaker the blood was in, had these radio electrode things sticking out of the top of it. The amplified brain waves from Sherlock's head- set caused the blood to suddenly glow a very bright red. Then Irene dropped some capsule of what looked like limestone into it, and started mixing it up. The blood began to turn black, and fold in on itself, and look more and more like it was being chemically changed into a sort of motor oil...

"Now just as I've heard them say so many times, Junior, you're becoming more machine than man! See, isn't it wonderful? I don't need oil wells! I just need Sherlock's veins! And the Age of the Vampires can begin!"

Sherlock rolled on the floor, and suddenly his voice got very deep...

"There is only one problem with your discovery, Irene."

"Oh, really? Do tell us."

Sherlock looked up, and John, who had been stairing at him in horror this whole time, took a step back at how glassy his eyes had become. The whites were literally glowing a pale pink. He drew up, and ended up on his knees, and he growled. John swallowed at the utter bazaarness of their current situation, and wanted so desperately to just save "Frankenstein".

"The charge comes from _my_ mind, correct?"

"That's the beauty of it, yes. Now I can use you to help me with my 'chores'."

Sherlock laughed at her , like she was an imbecile.

"Why else do you suppose I surrendered myself to your men, and allowed myself to be taken in this game? Of course, Irene, how could you be so foolish?" He stood up with great effort. "If the charge comes from out of my mind, then of course I can control it!"

He closed his eyes, and pressed his fingers to the side of his head-set. Using his mind palace, John assumed, suddenly the charge went the other way. Sherlock's head-set began to glow bright blue, and the little lights were going hay- wire. The "oil-blood" in the vial began to bubble as it began to lose charge.

A moment later Sherlock stood panting, and the blood was in the vial a completely useless black goo.

"So, it seems the only way that you are going to get what you want from me, is if I willingly partcipate." Sherlock concluded.

Irene smiled, "No, Sherlock...I will break you."

John leaned closer to Mycroft, "We are going to have to get him out of that thing..." he muttered, and Mycroft swallowed, still horrified by what he'd just witnessed.

"You're free to go then, Mr. Holmes, Elder and Younger, and take your friends. Just know that I'm not the only player in this game, and you have the rest of the world to contend with..."

And with that she dismissed them,and went back into her mansion, to make some calls.

John laced an arm through Sherlock's, and gasped, "Yeah, we're going to have to get you out of this ...uh...machine."

Molly looked at him oddly then. And turned to the table. And stole some of Irene's equipment.

"You're a doctor. I'm a mortician. And Mary's a nurse. Between the three of us, we should have enough knowledge of the human body to know how to remove it without killing him..."

Sherlock tensed..."Wait..what?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, dear."Mrs. Hudson piped up.

John looked at Sherlock , as if contemplating. "Yes...Yes, bad as I hate to put you through any more, it has to come off!"

Without another word from any one, they stole out of the mansion, and into the woods, to find the truck/ambulance's hiding place and perform their "surgery".


	11. Chapter 11 Armageddon in His Mind

**Chapter 11: Armageddon in His Mind~**

The sun began to sink to its knees, as if proposing peace treatise to the earth, as if begging her not to march to war, and then fading away in streams of crimson and amethyst,like the blood and treasures, soon to seep from every vein, between the stones.

John carried Sherlock on his back. Felt his spine prickling at the charge passing through the man's central nervous system. Couldn't imagine the hell he was going through. But wished he could take it from him. Hid his tears behind the thin line that his mouth formed when he was concentrating. Soldier's tears are very rare. They need to preserve their precious water in the deserts through which they pass, but they spill their blood like wine.

The truck was hidden at the base of a cliff, along a white stream of cold water. As the sun bled over the earth's upturned hands, the glint of steel met the soldier's eye.

He laid Sherlock down on the cold gurney-like truck bed. Sherlock's hair entangled his face in thick curls of darkness, as if it was the wind imprisoned in the night, but wandering aimlessly, in an attempt to escape,to allow his thoughts manifestation, and give his body some reprieve from the influence of the electric prison in which he found himself. Weakly, he tilted his face upwards to look at him, under normal circumstance its color like alabaster, but with the loss of so much of his blood ,like the face of the moon, so shockingly pale as to catch John's breath, like the blast of blizzard gale. And his eyes. John felt his heart stop.

They were so discolored in the whites, they seemed to be alight with an amber fire. The ice-blue/ green irises almost pulsated with intensity of brightness. It was like lightning trapped behind a bullet proof glass. Far too strong for the glass, yet unable to get out,growing impatient.

His gaze was like a sword to the soul under normal circumstance. But this was so intense, that John's head literally began to throb.

And then, like a machine gone haywire, Sherlock started spouting off deductions, of around 140 diffrent cases all at once.

Mycroft leaned over him(John had forgotten he was here, and almost startled) and recorded all that was being said on an old camcorder, playing it back slowed down, where he could understand it. " Oh my God..." he muttered...

"What?" Mary asked, as John's attention was fully absorbed in the horrific sight before him.

Sherlock began to thrash, and talk faster, eyes darting in every direction, almost rolling in his head, but yet with enough control to them that one could realize he was doing it deliberately, observing everything. His mind must be overflowing with information.

"Somehow, they are feeding him strands of information. About cases of above top secret confidentiality. Enough black mail to start wars for the next thousand years. Things MI6 has been looking into for DECADES. I don't know, the head set must have some kind of signal transmitter or something, he's hearing, maybe by concealed microphone, subliminal strings of information, that he is well, doing with what he does best, but at 10 thousand times the speed and precision."

Sherlock clasped John's hand, "Keep John safe,...all of this...c-coming to a head, I can...control this..." he closed his eyes, trying to turn his mind off. A string of confessions came out, and then he bit at his lip, till it turned scarlet with the effort to focus.

"Mmm,mmm not going to recover. Not till the charge discharges..." he began brokenly. "She- she's bugged me...c-can hear me... Need you to...focus...on what mm saying...IIIIII..." he thrashed violently, and John thrust his palms heavily into his chest, to still him. He gasped ,the wind knocked out of him. His eyes, in their migraine inducing agony, begged for an end to his pain.

_Keep John safe._

In front of his wife, and friend's John kept his stern soldier's mask. But he would weep rivers tonight when he was alone,and the others slept. He would weep rivers, and oceans, at the thought that his dearest friend, had willingly chosen this...

_Snap out of it! Help him! _ His mind shouted at him, in the voice of a captain that he used in Afghanistan on faultering young soldiers.

Sherlock leaned closer, suddenly reached and clutched John's face. He had done this before, when he _really _ needed John to concentrate.

He bit back the random strings of deductions, blinked his eyes, pushing all the rapidly processed information into other rooms of his mind palace. In the eyes of his mind, he was standing in the center, and files were flying to their cabinets, like the wings of a thousand eagles swooping to a landing, and the palace was on fire, an electirc, rabid -foaming fire that gnawed at all his nerves. He wasn't going to escape himself alive. But he might be able to save John.

He focused, against the grain of the world's dirty little secrets avalanching him in full force,and like a pebble standing against the sea, he forced himself to focus on the one that stood priority above all the rest.

John.

His John.

He watched his eyes. Saw the glassiness, the unwept tears there.

"_Stupid!" _ he shouted at himself, though silently.

In his mind he could see Jim, standing on the rooftop of the burning palace. "Not so easy now, huh?" he rolled his eyes looking around,

"Looks like you've become a regular Nero ,Sherlock. And here I thought you were on the side of the angels...Tsk tsk...Boring...I'm disappointed..."

Sherlock cursed under his breath, clutched harder, felt the scratch of John's tousled blonde hair against his finger tips, as he made him look him in the eyes...

"_GAH! Stupid! He's going to die, think, fool!" _ his own voice was screaming at him.

And then an image of himself standing on the rooftop of his burning mind palace, with Jim behind him.

Sherlock grimaced, not really so sure why it always had to end this way.

"S'pose you're happy?" he said ,over his shoulder to Moriarty.

"Oh, Sherlock, I'm ecstatic."

Sherlock scoffed, and pulled his mobile out of his coat pocket, in the eye of his mind.

Called John in his mind, begging him to pick up. Was suddenly reliving St. Bart's ,for the upteenth time.

Could see John , standing on an ashen sidewalk beneath him. Started talking out of his head to him, clutching him, and John's eyes glistened on earth, as it was in his mind palace, at what he was saying...

"This call is my note...It's what...what people do...People always talk, you know, John?"

John nodded, and lifted shaking hands to Sherlock's wrists, rubbing them with his thumbs. His pulse was like wild horses.

"Talk...yeah...lot of talk.. Usually isn't true..." he answered, trying to help him along.

Sherlock swallowed, focusing on the man on the "sidewalk". Had to save him. Had to convince him all he was saying was true...

"All of this is just a bloody magic trick...Don't fall for it...L-leave that...to me..."

Mary was absolutely amazed then at how her husband bit back his tears, and smiled instead.

" No! No, I'd never believe it. No one will ever convince me you lied to me..." John laughed, voice aching. Even Mycroft felt the stab of their pain, and Molly swallowed a huge lump in her throat. Mrs. Hudson ran off into the woods a ways, shaking her head, covering her mouth in a dainty hand.

Sherlock ran his fingers through John's hair, grasping at his desperate need to get him to focus, to keep himself from going back into his machine- avalanche.

"So, you trust me?"

"Of course..."

"Solved, how to stop this...Deaden headset...John..."

"Yeah, how?"

"You trust me?"

"Yes!, Sherlock,you know I do..."

"You have a difibulator?"

John swallowed, seeing where this was going. Nervously,he nodded to Mary to get it, and get it ready.

"Charge, so high...My brain is killing my body...s'posed to be diffrent, I don't know... you're the doctor, but...need charge, like when...revive somebody with it..y'know? Will be enough to stop this,...induced uh...censory overload...Might stop my heart,.. but if you time it right..."

"Ok, when is the right time?"

"When I surrender to the madness..."

John understood.

"Then what?"

Sherlock looked at Molly desperately..."Want to help me, one more time?"

She smiled,through threatening tears,and nodded feverishly.

"Make small incision,back of my scalp, very close to nape of my neck, you'll see where. Slide that little tube out of there, the rest will just...just slide off..."

He swallowed, clutched at John's face again..."No pressure, but she'll be sending people...so...you have ten minutes..."

In the mind palace he swallowed. Jim looked down at the sidewalk, smiling like a kid in a candy store.

"Mmmm,,,...This time I get to watch...Oh, it's perfect , Sherlock, for once, for once you show me! Good luck on the way down!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes at him, and then blinked, focusing on John.

"I...this is my note,..can't come down, we have to do it this way,..." he was spouting off..."This is an apology...Good-"

John clamped a fierce hand over his mouth..."**Shut up."**he hissed, breathless..." Never again! Never again will I let you say 'goodbye' to me!"

Sherlock's eyes were wide and nervous..."You trust me?"

"You know I do! But don't you DARE ...say..." he swallowed...

"I'm...I'm letting go...now..."

John nodded, and took a deep breath. Mary had the difibulator charged.

John watched. He knew that he would know when the time was right.

Sherlock was falling in his mind palace now. He could hear Jim above him.."WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHOOOOOO!" he cried, leaping off with him.

John watched his eyes, saw him falling for him there... again.

"Now." he said to Mary, never taking his eyes off Sherlock.

The jolt caused the headset to blow its lights, and Sherlock was knocked out cold.

Molly gave a cry. Mary staired in horror for a long moment.

Numbly, John moved to check his vitals, to confirm what he must.

He felt a burning from the top of his head,to the soles of his feet, when after a moment, he could find Sherlock's pulse again, starting weak and irregular.

"He made it..." he whispered.

Mycroft gasped and said:

"We have 5 minutes. I already hear dogs."

"Mrs. Hudson!" Mary cried, running to get the beloved landlady back so they could make hiatus.

Molly swallowed, "Got a knife?"she asked John.

He handed her one, and eased Sherlock on his side.

She made the cut, and pulled the wire out.

For half a second she held it mid -air thinking the thing would blow. Not at all worried about the inciscion. It barely even bled; Molly was _that_ good.

Then John eased the head-set off. Sherlock shuttered, his lips trembled wildly, and he shivered like he were hypothermic.

"Now we have ten seconds!" Mycroft cried.

Mary pulled Mrs. Hudson up into the truck.

"Well, start the truck then!" John barked at Mycroft, who ran flapping his arms, and bending his knees, resembling a rooster that accidently walked into a KFC.(It's an American fried chicken place, for the reader who may not understand the reference).

"Oh...uh...How do we drive this out of a ravine?" Mycroft called back to John.

Who gently eased unconcious Sherlock to lying down in Mary's lap, and clambered to where Mycroft was in the driver's seat, and stood over him."You apply the gas, and I'll take the wheel!" He cried, just as Irene Adler burst out of the woods on a motorcycle, with a walkie talkie in hand.

Shadows began to leave their places under trees, and close in on them, revealed as men, not shadows.

Mycroft kicked the gas, and they spun mud and leaves for a minute, before the blurring chase began.


	12. Chapter 12 When Calvary Come

**Chapter 12: When Calvary Come~**

Sherlock woke up with a shudder, and a jolt passing through him, still more electrically charged than the others cared for. Mary drew a hand over his forehead, and he noticed then that the painful head band was gone. He could feel the effects of the charge, and his natural abilities still heightened considerably,but controlable now.

"Shh...hey how do you feel now,Sherlock?" Mary laughed, and he wondered what on earth could have the little fox-like smirk on the woman's face now. For a moment he was dazed. "Mary?" he asked, brows curling ,confused.

Then he heard the sound of machine gun fire as Irene's people personally escorted them out of Romania, and he heard Mrs. Hudson singing,:

"_Dashing through the woods, in an armored truck's bed,Trying not to get killed by trees, oh John's driving all the way, oh God help!,_

_Mycroft's mobile rings, The ambassador of wherever-the-bloody-devil-Kazakisthan is can wait-_

_Oh what fun it is to ride and sing, when the world's coming to and end, oh!_

_Jingle shells, bullet shells, jingle all the way! _

_Oh what fun it is to ride through the middle of a battle! hey!"_

Molly was bowed over her lap, obviously tired of the woman's hysterical nervous singing. This was cleary what had Mary amused, as Molly was chewing her finger nails to keep from grabbing the woman's lips to hold them shut.

"Oh, leave off,Mrs Hudson! Why in blazes are you singing that tune,it isn't anywhere near Christmas!"Sherlock gasped, and curled up like a toddler in Mary's lap, covering his ears, and trying to stuff his thick black curls down in them, with hopes maybe they'd work like ear plugs.

"Oh, but Sherlock dreaming is believing ,dear!"

"No,not _dreaming. Dreaming _ is stupid, and has no basis in fact, and-"

Sherlock had sat bolt upright, and was about to start in on one of his logic-is-the-key-to-our-existance-what-goes-on-in-your-funny-little-stupid-brains?-I'm-right-so-shut-up tirades, when John started cracking up from the front seat, and this shut him up with a resounding click of his jaws snapping shut.

"No worries,Sherlock. We'll be meeting up with the rest of Mycroft's-specially-arranged-trap-for-Adler-out-of-MI6 unit in just a little while." he laughed, and Sherlock panted.

"Why do I still feel like the equivalent of a battle droid,body parts all put on backwards, electrically short-shot and ..and...STUPID! Oh, stupidity, my Achilles heel! I can't even hear the word -it makes my skin CRAWL!" and he put a hand to his nose,and sort of swooned backwards into Mary's waiting arms.

John had to chew his lip to keep from busting out laughing. Part of the reason,is that he could see Sherlock in the rear-view mirror, and his hair was sticking up like a very "Sherlock" version of the bride of Frankenstein from old movies. And part of it was just so glad that they had gotten him back, and gotten him back to normal( well, normal for Sherlock anyway). He also felt like they were well underway to averting the third World War. The only thing he couldn't forsee at this point was...lunchtime.

"Well, actually, I think it's the electricity, you're making my skin crawl too." Mary said, stifiling a snicker.

"Oh, sorry!" Sherlock popped up off her lap, "What are you giggling for ,Molly?" he gasped, exasperated, and turned to the rear-view mirror to meet John's eyes, and then yipped like a chihuahua, ( a squeaky, scratchy,unnatural use of his rather deep voice) at the sight of his hair.

"My God!" he gasped, pawing at his wild locks like a dog scratches its flees.

"Whaaaaaat?" Mycroft growled, annoyed at his leaning over his shoulder,whilst he was answering a myriad of texts. Then he turned, eyes wide. John busted out laughing, not caring how loud it was. The panic in England over the state of affairs? The fate of Westren civilization? The balance of the universe? Restoration of peace to the Cosmos? It would all have to be put on hold. No little brother of Mycroft Holmes would be seen in public, or even in the company of more-like-family friends,(and God forbid v.i.p Birtish agents!) looking like THAT.

"Oh God,Sherlock! Here..." Mycroft slammed the phone down on the dash, and John reached and grabbed it before it burst into shards on the truck's floorboards during their bumpy evac ride. Mycroft pulled out of his coat pocket with a flourish, a long metallic strip, and pressing a button a comb flipped out. And John realized it had an aerosol can of hair spray built into the body of the comb. Mycroft used one hand to grab Sherlock ,in a death grip, by his face,so he couldn't wriggle away, and the other hand carefully started trying to calm the raging curls, during the rather fuzzy maelstrom.

Sherlock growled unintelligble things around Mycroft's palm,still weak from blood loss, hands plucking fiercely at Mycroft's wrists.

"I don't care if you ARE an adult , you are still my BABY brother, and I will NOT have you appear before agents of Britain, or even Adler's thugs, with this sort of utterly inappropriate business going on with your hair. It is an utter abomination and disgrace to the Holmesian legacy for you _"

Sherlock was indeed not a child anymore, and even though he was half-again as strong as normal, still with a man's strength ,as if to prove a man's point, he atlast pushed Mycroft off.

"ANSWER YOUR BLOODY PHONE! World Peace is of far greater importance than keeping little brother and his hair in line!" he growled, snatching the comb and beginning to pick at it. Then, he glared at John, who was looking more at him than the path they were weaving down.

"Aren't you supposed to be _driving?_"he fussed.

"Oh, oh right!" John cried, righting the truck before it came a little too close to that tree.

Molly's giggles turned into rolling-on-the-truck-bed-pounding -her-fist-into-the-panels-laughter. Broken up by the occasionally awkward,"Sorry, not right,well it's just-" Sherlock rolled his eyes,

"Seriously, what is so amusing?!" he snapped. Then he saw Mycroft typing,

"I will consult my brother, who is a detective of some crediblity on this-" before he could finish the message, Sherlock snatched the phone, and before Mycroft knew what was happening, he had typed "This is Sherlock Holmes ,the detective in question-" and then he solved not one of the cases the panicing officials were posed with, but he answered all of them, even the ones they didn't know about.

"These are on the house, free of charge,consider it my Good Samaritan deed-and I'm the black sheep of the Holmes flock_SH."

He tapped the keyboard with as close to a flourish as tapping can come on his "signature", and then took the wheel from John for a second, avoiding a boulder, as John was laughing too hard to be driving.

"You are under the influence of stupidity!Snap out of it John, you're far too clever for this, COME TO,MAN!" Sherlock cried, popping John's forehead.

Mycroft staired at his phone in absolute disbelief. His brother had solved close to about 150 inquiries(and twice as many they didn't inquire about) in maybe all of 30 seconds tops.

The ambassador of Hong Kong simply typed back.."Woah..."

The rest of the world was silent for 15 minutes, and then the American ambassador wrote back,

"Mycroft Holmes, assuming this is you. You may need to have your brother...medicated..."

Myrcroft slowly glanced at Sherlock. Who had his head on the back of John's seat and was chanting like a mantra in a very low and hoarsely distorted version of his voice."Boredboredboredboredboredboredbored...-only the bloody problem with Adler's people to solve now!- boredboredboredboredbored..."

John patted his again-wild-from-brain-activity hair, and chuckled,..."It's ok...There will be more wars and murders, trust me. Loads more..."

"Why so boring,John!" he whined, and pouted ,leaning heavier on the seat, hands on John's shoulder.

"Believe me, sir...That would not help.-MH"

Mycroft turned his mobile off then, just hoping it wouldn't somehow burst into flames. He looked at Sherlock utterly mortified at his twitching, and the mantra, and the occasional outburst of a loud "BORED!"

Followed by John's long-suffering (but slightly annoyed) response of, "My ears, Sherlock! Yes..I know...You'll be ok. We'll find another murder,soon as all of this is over. I even hear the MI6 helicopters now, the team Mycroft put together to ...help...you..."

"I don't need help!"Sherlock laughed like a hyper teenager, "I need work. The Apocalypse is boring ,John!"

Mycroft could hear Adler trying to call off her men a little too late. And thought to himself that Sherlock might not need help but Adler would, seeing as she was a few minutes shy of her punishment(which was being forced to work with Sherlock to clean up the mess she had made).

Mycroft leaned back in his seat and clucked like a pigeon, till Sherlock was hyperly clapping his hands over his gaping mouth, causing them to make "pop" sounds, and gasped, exasperated

"Get out,the Agents have arrested Adler and her boys, and now we've got work!Work, weehoo!"

And then he skipped out of the truck like a kid on summer holiday.

"Oh God,..."Mycroft moaned, almost hoping for a soon to be World War 4 threat so Sherlock would just shut. up!


	13. Chapter 13 The Hounds of Atlantis

**Chapter 13: Hounds of Atlantis~**

"Mmm, the cuffs are flattering on you, darling, as a matter of fact, you look absolutely glamorous like that!"Sherlock jeered, pacing in front of the recently captured Irene Adler, like a tiger in a rather small box.

Irene smiled, "Looks like you got the headset off, after all...Well that's too bad. We could have had a lot of fun with it, darling. All the adventures... Making your brilliance look like pre-school stuff."

Sherlock sniffed the air. " Sorry, but 'games' are for children..." he said in the subtle tone, that bespoke an infinite well of pain. Sherlock Holmes, John realized, suddenly, was probably the only person he knew that's heart could literally shatter ,like it was strapped to cemtex, with a completely straight face. She'd hurt him, John could hear what he couldn't see. She'd hurt him, irreparably.

She smiled through lips painted red, in John's imagination, oozing with Sherlock's blood. Vampire after all, was she.

"Mmm, you say that because this time you lose." she laughed.

"How's that? I solved all the cases you set up for me, about," he looked at his wristwatch, "3.5346795 minutes ago, actually."

She laughed,"So your mind's in overdrive still, I can 'deduce'." she laughed, "But your heart is still so dense,oh Sherlock, it's so bloody sad, that it can't be amusing..."

"What ever are you talking about,Woman?; we haven't got all day for you to explain!"

"You...You may have won the war." she smiled grimly, "Saved the day. Prevented the movement from claiming the eternal capitol of Atlantis,no, not the mythical location, so much as the scientific re-incarantion..." (Sherlock rolled his eyes, and moved his mouth to mimic her. She sounded like a textbook, or like a parrot of one of the weird anarchists she was party to). "But you lost the battle, Sherlock..."

"This is a waste of time. How could I have possibly won the war and lost it at the same time, Irene. Rubbish!"

"YOUR SOUL, Sherlock! You sold me your soul. You've drawn out all the hounds of Atlantis. The earth's most vicious criminals. You have sealed all their fates, sentenced them to their rightful judgement. They now can trace the end of their ambition to ONE man...To you, Sherlock Holmes! Will Noah's old bones roll in his grave, and build an ark for you? You better hope to God he will ; you'll be swimming in blood soon. Your own, I'm afraid. And Jonny's...And Mary's...And Molly's. And big brother, and what's-his-name-the-policeman?"

"It's Greg!" Sherlock hissed, remembering the name in his anger. "Or maybe it's Gavin; that's beside the point. If you touch them...if any one touches them,..."Sherlock suddenly drew up. His hands stretched out, and then he was shaking violently. His eyes began to burn with the amber fire John remembered from before. And with brain stimuli, the magnetic field process they'd been studying manifested. Sherlock then turned all the guns of the MI6 agent's barrels on Irene with his mind, cocked them, and they were ready to fire. His voice was extremely distorted, sounding like the Angel of Hell, the demons feared to wake.

"Then I will burn the world down around you. No one will escape it. If they die, you die. Justice served..."

Irene laughed..."Oh darling, do you see what you have done?"

He looked around. Everybody was stairing at him in horror.

"Either way you lose...Mirror ,mirror on the wall. You are a monster after all..Remember, I told you you were when you got so violent in the lab? A monster , Sherlock...Science gone _horribly _wrong."

Mycroft suddenly stepped in, wrapped an arm protectively around the man-child his brother. "Science un-explained. Potential yet un-reached, un-used. Pure magic, that." he corrected, in the superior tone that could only be effected by the Great Mycroft Holmes.

"And the world could use magic. And miracles. And monsters ,too. To set right all that you've upset with your obvious witchcraft. And don't go saying that it's rubbish;you're the one that was talking "Age of Vampires" just yesterday, you know."

Mycroft grabbed Sherlock's wrists, "Brother mine, care to let go of all the guns?"

"I'm afraid I don't know how?"

"Your hands are stuck out all rigid, brother dear. Now perhaps you can draw a conclusion from this?"

Sherlock swallowed, and met John's gaze. John swallowed, and smiled at him. It was enough. Sherlock's tension visibly eased. And so did his hands.

And the gunmen were able to relax their weapons.

Sherlock plucked at his shirt collar. Normally it would have been his long coat's collar, or that of his blazer. John remembered then that he was wearing Sherlock's blazer ,still. His wearing it being just one more subliminal gesture of the detailed lengths the man would go to to protect him, and his. He folded his arms, and stepped forward.

"I'm not as clever as the Holmes brothers, and I haven't the foggiest as to how grand of a mess you've made, Woman, but if you think for a fraction of a nano-second,(since we're being scientific and all that rot) I will just stand aside and let the hounds of hell have my friends like chew-toys, well you've got another thing coming."

"You keep your pet very well, Doctor Frankenstein. How relieved you must have been when you realized 'It's alive!'."

"I was, and I intend to keep him that way."

"What are you going to be able to do though, John-boy? This is a war of gods, and monsters. And you're just an army doctor with a gimpy leg."

"I don't need my legs, or my arms to fight."John scoffed. "I still have teeth. You'll have to bash them out of my head...And that will only set me back, it won't stop me..."

He wrapped an arm around Sherlock in turn, and he and Mycroft smiled in unison that they had their 'kid brother' in their sights, and no amount of world class criminals were going to be able to do anything to him or about him because of it.

Irene turned to the head of the agents of the MI6 team. "Alright, so you weren't really needed then?I'll come willlingly, and make full confession of all the naughty things I've done. And I'll even give you a clue, Franky!" she turned to Sherlock, smiling wickedly.

"Moriarty wasn't the only one with a web."she winked.

"Take her away.."Mycroft hissed, suddenly irrationally angry, his "Ice-man" countenance beginning to melt.

Irene was lead into a helicopter, making kissy faces at Sherlock. "Good luck..or what is you boys would say?..Mazel tov!"

Sherlock turned away, a hand subconciously pressed to his brow. Mycroft patted his shoulder, and went to talk to a few remaining agents on the ground.

Sherlock was half bowed over, head in hands, when _his _ beloved voice pulled him back from his own Outer Darkness.

"You ok?"

_Ah, John..._Sherlock thought, _Brave, reckless, naive, John...Tell me, how do I save you? Where you STAY that way. God help me...Faith then?I don't know."_

This silent response going on in his scrambled mind, unaware, that he was shaking,and bowed over,face still in his hands.

"Sherlock..."

John's voice breaking into his darkness again, like swords from the sun.

His hand, just as warm, resting on his shoulder. He could feel the indent of his fingers through the thin, and damp from perspiration, fabric. Didn't realize how nervous he must cleary be ,till right then.

Turned him around just them with the forceful yet careful gesture only a man who is both soldier and doctor could acheive.

"You AREN'T a monster..." said a very quiet manifestation of John's voice.

" A machine, then?" Sherlock gasped, exasperated.

John's face was stone. "No...No, a man. The same one that was man enough to jump off the top of a bloody hosptial, and become a lab experiment to save my life."

Sherlock smiled. John smiled back. "Your side is bleeding again. Let's dress it properly now that the calvary has brought a med-vac helicopter. The others are going home on Mycroft's jet."

"Are we going home then?"

John smiled, "Not sure. We'll have to ask the Meddler Consulting first." he nodded towards Mycroft, and Sherlock chuckled.

"Come on..."John prodded, and pulled him away from the scene of the crimes- done- to- him, though they were subtle, unnoticed by all save John.


	14. Chapter 14 This is Ever After

**Chapter 13: This is Ever After**

It was only after they had taken to the air, and had Sherlock in the sterile life-flight helicopter that John began to realize something was far more amiss than had already been noted. It was as if the charge of the device into which they had strapped him had reached some sort of 'peak performance point'. Sherlock's eyes were such an odd shade now, that every time John looked at them, he felt shivers go up and down his spine.

Mycroft turned around from his seat as co-pilot to smile at John, "So, to answer your question ,Doctor. No we aren't going home. We are flying to the location of "Old Atlantis" over the ocean, given the locale that Adler gave us. We will draw out her entire "league" in this , with his new found skill set will perform one last masterful deduction,I will send the little darlings to the dungeon, and we will all go home to boring and wet England. It sounds...marvellous, doesn't it, John?"

John was distracted..."Oh, yes, your plan is just ...uhmm... wizard!"

Mycroft was silent, gaze following Doctor Watson's.

Sherlock's eyes, had begun to change color in their center. They were ultra-violet, and red and oarnge in parts of their natural grey-green. And he was muttering, his voice strangely distorted, cracking and gasping as if maybe he were breathing his last.

His fingers reached up towards John, and John clutched his hand, nervous.

"Solved it...Solved it..already.."Sherlock gasped..

"What did he say?" Mycroft asked.

"Sherlock?"

John leaned close, as Sherlock leaned up, and said into his ear," It always ends this way, though...doesn't it? This is what they want...Can fix this, have solved this.I am good at it..."

"At...what?"

"John?,what in the name of heaven is he saying?"

Sherlock suddenly sat bolt upright, and was on his feet, pulling the plaster off his wound...

"Oi, you're bleeding again-wha?"

"IOU!" Sherlock shouted..."No, no, I owe them! I will repay them all of it...all of it...and give'em hell!"

John leaped to his feet, "SHERLOCK?! WHAT THE-"

Sherlock interrupted him before his swearing tirade could ensue.

"Fall...Good at it..."

He threw open the emergency escape,

"Sherlock ,I swear before God, and everybody trying to kill us, if you jump, I-!"

"No time for empty threats...No time to explain. Pointless to apologize. You will never forgive me...

But John, how easy...Too easy...I know how to end this. Dive into the sea...The heart of Atlantis..The heart of their system. I am the emergency switch! I solved it...If you can't be proud of that, and you can't forgive me, then atleast remember that...I was...good."

He put his arms out like the wings of a swan spreading over the blood red- with- the -twilight water. Below them, there was a shape in the water, rising out of the sea like a half-submerged raft, like and ice cube right as it begins to melt in the drink.

Mycroft was standing in his seat now, headset falling off. For the first time he saw Sherlock's falling epidemic from John's side of the fence...

" Don't. !" John growled..."If you do...I swear...I swear I'll..."

"You'll live, though, John...You'll survive. 'Cause that's what you do..."

"No..."John was now smiling the way he did only when he was absolutely furious to the point of insanity..."No, you **IDIOT**!" he gasped, and the word was so pointed and heavy,it knocked all the wind out of him.

Sherlock used this to his advantage...He smiled, one last shaky smile.

Dove backwards ,into the water, towards the strange shape of 'Atlantis Locale'.

"SHERLOCK!"Mycroft screamed, more horrified than John was angry.

But John pounced to the edge of the emergency exit. He turned back to Mycroft with a sickly twisted expression on his face...

_"You always knew it would end this way..." _said John's eyes.

"_I was in denial._" Mycroft's eyes said back.

John turned and put his arms out, and with one last rage- quavering breath..he said..

"If you jump...I jump!"

And John slipped away.

So many of those suicidal jumpers thought they had fallen from grace. Leaping from moving trains, and skyscrapers, to a destination of cold stone...

Sherlock and John had been suprisingly fortunate. They fell from out of a heaven that's gaze was condemnation, into an ocean of relentless grace, spreading out beneath them.

As it turned out, the object that was poking up out of the water, was much further below it than it had appeared.

John hadn't expected to die from the jump, but more- so from whatever terrible thing comes after.

He popped up out of the salty water, forgetting for a moment he had followed,thinking these were his tears, and this was the end.

When Sherlock's head tore free of the water, curls unraveled into streams of what looked like ink, pouring over eyes and ears, like the press had wept over his name, over his first time over the edge.

"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YOU FOOL!" Sherlock shouted.

John couldn't really haul water-treading hands out of the surf to send his fist flying into Sherlock's chin. So instead, he siezed him by the front of his shirt.

The sudden fury was super-human. Even Sherlock had never expected this from him. It was against the laws of nature,or so it would seem,John was somehow ten times stronger in this one moment of rage. Stronger than what? Stronger than all that Sherlock could associate with strength. This and more. And suprisingly strong, in this his weakest moment.

"FOOL? ME! YOU-HOW **DARE** YOU?!" His words were ice.

They had fought before,but never like this...This was the desperation of the last of one's kind. As if they fought over which one would survive the end of the Ages,to be the Last- Man- Standing- On- Earth. And they were fighting each so it would be the _other_, and not himself.

"I _**SOLVED **_THE FINAL PROBLEM ,FINALLY! I CAN'T EXPECT YOU TO BE HAPPY ABOUT IT, BUT ATLEAST LET ME DO MY BLOODY JOB, TO THE END OF THE WORK!"

John shook him, "_**HAPPY?!**_ WHAT IN GOD'S NAME, WOULD EVEN ALLOW THE WORDS 'HAPPY ABOUT IT' TO CROSS YOUR MIND?! DON'T YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?!"

"A MONSTER, A MACHINE! AND THE FINAL PIECE TO THEIR GREAT GAME!"

"NO!-GOD,NO!" and from the shouting that could be heard in space, John's voice cracked..."You...You...are my brother..."

"You're life is at stake here, we've no time for sentiment, for God's sake...You.."

"FOR GOD'S SAKE INDEED,SHERLOCK! BLOODY WELL RIGHT MY LIFE'S AT STAKE, WHEN YOU GO JUMPING..."tears as hot as the blood of mountains poured free...his voice broke again ,unable to say it...

"I LOVE YOU, FOR GOD'S SAKE!...WHY? WHY DO YOU HAVE TO..."

He shook him then so hard, that Sherlock almost passed out...Then realizing what he was doing he lowered him back in the water, and knotted his fingers in his ink-stream hair, their forehead's pressed together, as he sobbed in a fit of uncontrolable rage...And gasped, as Sherlock blinked, utterly stupified by his attack. Rage began to bleed into sorrow, as John's tears mingled with the sea and he realized how truly deep his grief was. Sorrow bled into words...

"You're not a bloody monster, how could you SAY that? You're not a machine..." sorrow ,thick and hoarse, like he'd gotten drunk off nails,

"You are my brother...And I love you. Do you have _any _ clue what that means, oh sacrificial one? Yeah...no, don't play stupid with me...

Your whole bloody life...Sherlock. And I've been there for quite a bit of it...You could have been ANYTHING. A scientist, an academic of some kind. You could have revolutionzied, ruled the world with your little finger, for glory, if it was for glory, you certainly are brilliant enough!But you chose to be a detective, because even though it hurt less to pretend you didn't care, you did. You wanted to help people. And you avoided sentiment, because sentiment would mean you would have to feel, you would have to be present in their lives. A part of a world that you wanted to save, but had pushed you out of it like some sort of disease, like a"sociopath", isn't that what you call yourself? But you aren't. You were diffrent was all...And diffrent comes with a label in the today.

Bitterness for the well-done deed never given the credit-due, was mistaken for arrogance. And said arrogance labeled you as abnoxious, and your every word was weighed as a pain to listen to. But really the words, the abrupt sting of them ,was like throwing the salt back from your wounds, and making them stay back. Give you the space. Let you be you, and let you help in your way without having to fit. Caring, from a distance...

And I watched. I watched you care from a distance, time and time again. Watched as you tried to calm Sarah down that night. As you tried to save Soo Lin Yao. I watched,Sherlock... Watched you care from a distance...when...when there was a sniper's bead on the back of my head. How I didn't know it at the time,but you weren't a machine, and you did care about and knew she was going to die, if you didn't do something. Knew Greg was going to die...Knew that _I_ was going to die...

I WATCHED! I watched as you told me everything was a lie. I watched as you denied yourself,and everything you'd lived for, and threw yourself..."

Sherlock was crying now...John was shocked to feel his tears mingling with his, shocked that he could feel his brow twist in the pain of what was being said, which was opening him up and reading him aloud,like a book.

"I watched you die for me...Sherlock. Watched,from a distance... And now, do you see why I was angry? That you would make me watch...AGAIN?!"

"But it doesn't matter if you hate me, if I can save you...I've always believed in you...out there in the midst of all of 'them'. It's you...I've always been trying to save..."

"Sherlock..."

John wasn't angry anymore...He was just so tired. Looked into the foggy eyes.

"I couldn't hate you if I tried.I was so alone...and so were you...And if anybody needs saving right now..."

Sherlock was shaking..."I know how to stop all of this...Maybe...we can save...each other?"

"As per normal?"

Sherlock laughed.."Will you help me?"

"Will you live this time?"

"Do you have to ask stupid questions?"

"Do you have to be such a jerk?"

They were laughing now.

"You jump...I jump.."John muttered again..."You fall, I fall..."

"Nobody's falling today..."Sherlock gasped, with a smile, and turned to face the unidentified aquatic object.


	15. Chapter 15 End of an Empire

**Chapter 15:End of an Empire**

"Ok, so this is basically what's going to happen.."Sherlock swallowed, and folded his hands together for a moment, trying his best to explain their course of action to John, who was, as soldier's only can, very carefully concealing the fact that he was a complete basket case of nerves at what Sherlock was suggesting.

"Do you remember how I thought Moriarty's network must have had a key code? Of course, it makes perfect sense, John. Everything is on-line these days. And with this Atlantis take-over-the-world- network, it would be no exception. But instead of some kind of numerical key code,they decided to deposit all of their secure files, and secrets, and need for information into a 'bank' if you will. Into a think tank, a lab experiment..Uh...My mind..."

John licked his lips. "So, what you are saying, is this craft we have found, or half- submerged barge ,really, is the prototype of one of the 'Atlantis Fleet' or an armada of nautical vessels that run with the same scientific phenomena as they were testing on you?"

Sherlock smiled, "Yes, catching on really quick, as usual. Anyway, the pilot's seat is rigged to be operated by the mind...Now, this protoype, they wanted me to sail it to carrying out their orders, to destruction, to finding top secret bases, alerting them to the status and locale of said places, basically feeding them a life -line of information through my own mind's natural process, and babbling into my mic uncontrolably. What they never factored in is that I wouldn't succumb to their madness. That I would actually have a _choice..._"

"But now that you do have a choice, you are going to operate this vessel, to destroying itself?"

Sherlock nodded..."And to basically force them all off- line which would end their operation, which could continue even with the leaders,such as Adler, in custody, if the rest of the network were still on-line."

"So, what am I supposed to do?"

Sherlock smiled, and John had never seen such a pleasant smile on his face before. It took him rather by suprise,and he smiled back, and Sherlock laughed almost..shyly..?!

"You've actually already done your part."

"Really? How?"

"Well, when they were torturing me...When they mentally were trying to break me, so I could...do ...what they wanted...without resisting...I..." he swallowed."Uhhh..."

John wasn't used to any real slightly-more-than-subtle sign of emotional flare from now, he was twicthing his nose, and fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, where they knelt, sopping wet, on the aforesaid barge, where in places it stood out of the water.

"They couldn't because of you...I could...see you.."he pointed to his forehead, "In my mind palace...And when they talked about torturing you, the thought was that it would drive me crazy...They gave me graphic details of what they planned to do to you, even had a dummy dressed after your fashion, and umm...It did the opposite of their intent...It didn't drive me insane, it drove me to sanity, to grasping to all my reason with what ever life remained in me,so that I could...maybe...save you..."

John's mouth fell open in a silent "Oh?" like he should have already known this...

"It was leaving you...or rather sending you off to historic Transylvania and staying behind in Liverpool, it was the knowing you were hurt, and amnesiac when I left you, that...that was driving me batty...I had to get back to you...So, the night came...when the "doctors" for lack of a better term were bringing me the hallucigenic that, combined with that bloody headband, were making me see all manner of horrific things they were supposedly doing to you. I...I broke the window to my cell, that was over a lake, I think somewhere in Austria, but I don't actually know for sure. Well, I heard them coming and knew I'd have to be quick. I deduced the charge would probably save me, and that it was water proof, and barely satisfied with that being right, but knowing if I died then you'd still be safe, I decided to ..." his eyes trailed downwards.

"To jump..."John gasped, out of breath.

"Yeah..."

"Then what?"

"Then I figured out a way to manipulate the device to helping me pass through airport security unnoticed, and I stole onto a flight bound for Romania..."

"But the tracker, was it still in you at the time?"

"Yes,I ..uh,...removed it, in the back of a truck hauling livestock out to the historic district..."

"Oh my God.."

"I ..know..But... point is..you saved me , and by saving me, you stopped their plan from coming to fruition, and so in essence,you have saved the world. Bravo! But one last need to find this pilot's seat.I need to put on the device. And then we don't have to worry about figuring out how to steer or operate this bloody thing,seeing as the purpose of our venture is to BREAK it."

John looked around..."Well...that was...uhm..."

"Elementary?" Sherlock asked, noticing the seat ,too, abruptly. John looked at him cocked a brow.."My father used to say that..I don't know,it feels odd to say...Anyway, we might want to do this before the Meddling Consulting lands..."

He looked up at the helicopter circling ,looking for where they landed.

"Best ...just..get this over with..."John agreed, and they dove like two young seals into the water, and paddled for the seat which was barely standing out of the water.

The headset was hanging off the chair like a forgotten ipod's headphones. Sherlock gasped, and John helped him up, sucking his teeth at the self-inflicted wound in his side.

"_You really do care so much more than anybody knows..."_John thought as he watched him strap himself into the seat.

Mycroft was shouting some sort of string of orders, as Sherlock plugged himself in, and looked up at him, and mockingly shook his fist, for a reason John wasn't sure. Maybe just irritance.

And it all happened just like that.

An eletrical surge that blew John 30 ft through the air, and turned the helicopter upside down.

The seat was projected into the air, and Sherlock was lost in ultra- bright light...Thrashing like he was being tortured by a million devils...

The barge began to turn up onto its side, and it revealed that its under-belly was a series of thousands and thousands of LED lit up screens, and one by one they started to go dark,even as the seat began to glow brigter and brighter.

John staired in horror, as there was a sound and a force that rocked right through the center of the sea, and out into the world.

And the force blew all the lights to darkness, and the helicopter crashed into the water, and a moment after the blast,it was in flames, and Mycroft was crawling up out of the water,and above the fire,to where there was a dry and un-burning place, staring in horror, as Sherlock remained held in the jaws of electricity for a moment longer. The headset blew, and then, slowly, almost elegantly, and his brother imagined this to be what the death of an angel resembles, he fell into the sea.

John dove after him, as suddenly there was a whirring sound, and another explosion that sent Mycroft backwards, and into darkness, and he knew no more.


	16. Chapter 16 After Armageddon

**Chapter 16: After Armageddon**

Sherlock woke up to the feeling of John's hand brushing his hair out of his face.

His head throbbed.

Mycroft's suit was ...well for lack of a better word, barbecued.

Sherlock leaned up on his elbow, and looked around in horror.

The sea was on fire.

Or ,to be more accurate, the city under the sea was ablaze, through the electric fire.

"Whoa..."Sherlock breathed out...

Mycroft's eyes turned from the blaze at the end of the world,to look at his little brother. To really look at him, for the first time in a while.

His eyes, atlast, were their usual piercing uncharged and at peace.

He was staring at the sky, looking... ,worn, clearyly having had an impossible time for the last God only knows...

But the moment had come when, perhaps the world was still a troubled place, but it wasn't their trouble anymore.

Now Sherlock laid there, for once looking at wheels in his head no longer churning and cranking out deductions lke a hurdy gurdy does music.

For once blissfully(boringly) silent.

His Armageddon was over now...

So, what comes after?

"What you did was extremely dangerous..."Mycroft gasped.

Sherlock smirked, "Obviously..." he laughed, looking at him as mischievous as if he were a naughty little boy again, and smiled back.

"They'll be calling you a hero now."John was beaming, "And you won't want it, or care..."

"Why should I care what people think? They'll forget that we saved the world today ,tomorrow."

John smiled, and ruffled Sherlock's wet and tousled hair. "But I won't forget..."

"No, you won't." Sherlock smiled...Then he flinched as another helicopter hovered in close vicinity to them.

"Sherlock, you owe the service a new helicopter!" cried an agent.

"You think you could count it off as collateral damage after I just saved your ungrateful life!" Sherlock spat, teasing in his own way.

The agent laughed. Then Sherlock saw Irene ,and remembered that this was the helicopter that was supposed to be taking her into custody.

John helped Sherlock onto his shoulders, and climbed the rope ladder lowered down to them for him, seeing as he was still too weak to do it on his own.

"Of course, we wouldn't have had any idea what you were about to do, if Adler here, hadn't seen the smoke,and realized you'd figured out her riddle, and told us we needed to circle back to save you lot."the Agent went on.

Sherlock glared at her, and she smiled,

"Consider it an apology...Sherlock."

Sherlock looked down at his wounded side...and electrically burned fingers...

"It's a little too late for that, Irene..."he said, and John could hear real sadness in his tone.

She frowned, "Well,then...what is it time for?"

"Forgiveness..."Sherlock said to John and Mycroft's suprise. "And I forgive you,but don't ask me to, not that you would. And you will have to answer for what you've done. And it's goodbye, because I never wish to see you ,ever again."

"Do you regret saving me?" she asked,and now she too was actually sad.

Sherlock staired off into space, and John staired at his blank face wondering what all weighed against his dark, and extremely complex, and severely misunderstood mind...

"No...Because you did give me my greatest performance...But that doesn't mean that I want to ever have anything else to do with you..."

"Well, then...Goodbye,Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock smiled,and it was sad.

"Goodbye,...Irene."

John breathed a sigh of relief..."That's it then...it's done...Now..now we can go home..." he thought out loud.

Sherlock nodded,and reached and discreetly clutched at his hand.

"Now we can go home..."

World War 3 ended then, before it was begun, in a bright blaze of white fire over the the helicopter took to the sky, like a phoenix made of steel.

John laid back his head...feeling Sherlock's twitchy fingers locked with his own, not caring what Mycroft or Irene might think about was safely beside him,and looking out the window,in total shock at what he had done. John realized now, it was finally over...That the reputation preceded the world would know,that they were the" brothers Phoenix" and would rise from the ashes of Armageddon everytime.

There may still be trouble in the world...But there trouble at last ...was over. He knew in his heart, what ever happened now...it would be alright...

God knows, after all they had already survived, what was one more Apocalypse.

With a faint smile,John Watson laid his head back, and fell asleep to the sound of the burning ocean,and the helicopter's hum.

And Greg Lestrade heard it on the news that night, and buried his face in his hands...

"Mirror ,mirror on the wall, Sherlock Holmes is a good man after all..."he laughed, shaking his head.

"And maybe today...he is a great one."

**~The End**


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